Are you planning to build or are you planning a heist or get vengeance?

Well...it would be good to know the firm and designer of this house so as to avoid any sort of contact at all...

See Builder HousePlans.

Oh God. Pork chop returns. :(

For the Pro's- what is wrong with it? Are all/most stock plans trash? Most if not all these plans that you flame designed by completely untrained idiots? How can they get it SO wrong and not even close?

Well...unfortunately many of the plans from the plan factories are full of errors, bad judgement, poor taste and lack of architectural knowledge and experiece.

Is this trash? Well...IMO they represent a clearly poor investment and a waste of time and effort.

Why is this the case? Well...there's lots of reasons staring with the fact that the plans from many of the plan factories are generic and not designed for any particular site, not designed for any particular climate, not designed for any particular family's life style and needs, not designed to meet any particular budget, and often the designs ignore many or all of the most expensive building systems (foundation, super structure, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and signal).

When a consumer buys a plan of this type, they open themselves to all sorts of unanticipated extra expenses to tailor and fit these generic plans to their specific situation, including local zoning and building code requirements.

And then, in the vast majority of cases, the designs are created by folks who have little to no design knowledge, skill or experience. CAD operators and draftspeople are not designers. Thus the aesthetic appeal of such designs is frequently at the lowest level, often embarassing to view.

Yep, it does sound a lot like trash to me...

Can you see a difference?

See, also, How to Spot Arts and Crafts homes.

***

But if you're of the "I like what I like, and I like this" philosophy, enjoy! (Just not in my backyard, por favor.)

It is decent plan, NOT "Economical To Build" unless you account for saving on porkchop returns. My wife would not accept the pantry. HVAC looks narrow, and I really do not understand the point of window seat in a bathroom. Watch for stick build roof $$$$, trusses much more economical. I also disagree with most of Virgil claims. Comparing to what jewels produced by production builder architects in my state - this is tajmahal.

For rs81111 and anyone else interested, some of these following are helpful to improve discernment:

Reading through as much of the Building a Home forum archive as possible, especially the "critique my layout/plan" posts. These posts will help you to get an idea of what to look out for in online plans, including clunky layouts, wasted space, inefficient travel paths through a house, expensive elements that don't add to the design but WILL add to your budget (jigs and jogs and unnecessarily large/complex roofs).

Also Virgil Carter's various posts, including:

[What's A Well-Designed House?[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/whats-a-well-designed-house-dsvw-vd~5370217)

Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home Part 1 of 3

Tips for Buying Land Designing & Building Custom Home Part 1 Continued

[Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/tips-for-buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-part-2-dsvw-vd~5079485)

[Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2 continued[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/tips-for-buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-reposted-dsvw-vd~5213136)

[Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 3[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/buying-land-designing-and-building-a-custom-home-part-3-dsvw-vd~5213150)

and also

What are you doing to make your house enrich your life?

Sarah Susanka's books, The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live, Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home, and Home By Design

and also Designing Your Perfect House by William J. Hirsch Jr.

Some threads with other good/helpful/useful books,

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/3281434/book-suggestions#n=26

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2283666/suggestion-on-books?n=7

At the very least these books will help you identify some of the better online plans.

Some things to keep an eye out for:

1. Good site planning and development: take full advantage of your site, whether there are views to be had, the size and shape of the lot (for example, smaller city vs. larger rural)

3. Interior efficiency--minimal space devoted simply to circulation: not too much space devoted to hallways, well-planned and efficient rooms with really good flow in each room and between the rooms. This is also a very good way to make sure that your furnishings (whether it's what you already have or plan to buy after the build) will fit -- go to the Home Decorating forum to read about people trying to deal after the fact, making their furniture fit into awkwardly-shaped rooms.

4. Planning for interior natural light and energy efficiency: plenty of light and ventilation (the plenty of light part becomes more important as you get older and the need for reading glasses can increase), and also passive solar, which means you use Mother Nature to help keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter. This can be a huge energy savings.

5. No fat plans; no humongous roofs: A fat plan is a plan that is more than 1 or 2 rooms wide. This results in very dark rooms and huge, poorly proportioned, and very expensive roofs (not just the initial build, but reshingling/replacing too).

6. Simple use of materials: Not going crazy with a variety of materials, and considering the exterior as a whole, the interior as a whole, and the exterior and interior together. Not throwing all of the latest Pinterest ideas into one room or one exterior because it's popular on Pinterest at the moment.

More on "pork chop returns" here:

https://www.builderonline.com/design/alternatives-to-the-pork-chop-eave-return_o

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/why-are-full-cornice-returns-aka-mutton-chops-disliked-here-dsvw-vd~2287882

That design is available on almost every plan mill website in several different stye categories.

"...Comparing to what jewels produced by production builder architects in my state - this is tajmahal...."

That's exactly the wrong comparison...comparing to the bottom of the barrel.

The better comparison is to what can be done creatively and well with experienced architectural design. In such a comparison, the posted house design is a 1.5 on a 10-point architectural scale.